


Grey Skies

by aworldoffandoms



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Heavy Angst, Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-21
Updated: 2020-09-21
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:22:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,360
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26580595
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aworldoffandoms/pseuds/aworldoffandoms
Summary: Ethan sifts through his emotions. Can he ever see the silver lining again?
Relationships: Ethan Ramsey/Main Character (Open Heart)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	Grey Skies

**Author's Note:**

> This fic is my version of Chapter 12. Prepare yourself for the angst. It's heavy. I apologise in advance. 
> 
> The prompt list can be found on my Tumblr: https://www.tumblr.com/blog/aworldoffandoms

There has never been a time like this moment that Ethan hated more. For the last twenty-five years of his life, he has maintained a distance from forming relationships, from being vulnerable by feelings. He vowed that to himself after his mother walked out on him all those years ago. 

He’s always been governed by rules. His rules, his expectations for what he perceived as true. They were driven by facts and logical thinking. Most of the time, emotions were confusing for him. 

Nicolette changed all those rules for him. She had flipped them on it’s head. She had shaken his world on its axis and made him question every single little thing that made him, Doctor Ethan Jonah Ramsey. 

“ **Everything reminds me of you** , Nic.” 

The words are hollow as they escape his lips but it didn’t make it any less true. Everything did. Walking down the halls of Edenbrook, the stark sterile walls, made him remember the times Nicolette would stop him to ask him a question about a patient or a finding to research for one of their diagnostic patients.

In his stubborn stupidity, he always made sure to keep a professional distance but there always was a part of him that relished in her presence. There was an air about her that’s so magnetic and he surrendered willingly to it.

His heart squeezes painfully in his chest when he remembers the way her caresses trailed a soothing path down his torso all those months ago. The strength of her grip as her hands grappled at his back, the soft whimpers of pleasure, the wanton moans of ecstasy. 

His eyes squeeze shut as a choked sob escapes him. No. He can’t think about that. 

His heart twists again inside his chest like a vice grip and he lets out a groan. It doesn’t help that a headache has started to form and his head is fuzzy from the scotch he's been constantly drinking for the past three days to numb the pain. 

The past week has been hell. Incomprehensibly so. 

Most nights Ethan would get lost in Nicolette’s scent, the sweet smell of strawberries and coconut long since faded from his pillows. The long veil of her hair, the colour of a warm sunset, that tickled his face when she slept soundly on his chest after a long shift at Edenbrook. 

He'd find himself smiling at the sight of her lip tucked into her teeth as she thought of a case. His heart sped up at the sight of her smile, the light within her green eyes sparkling.

Her laugh would fill the room and make his smile strengthen and his heart would ache in his chest with delight.

He could listen to that sound forever...

A sob chokes him as he clenches his eyes shut against the overwhelming agony that lances through every nerve in his body. 

_Can this really be happening?_

Ethan almost thinks that this is a dream. A very frightening, incomprehensible nightmare. 

“How can this be happening? I can’t—” 

Ethan shudders against the sting of the wind and the cold slice of the rain pelting on his face and soaking through his clothes. 

He can't feel it. He's numb. Numb to everything around him. Yet, pinpricks like a thousand knives stab through the most vulnerable part of him. His heart. 

The one that Nicolette held in her hands for almost all the time he's known her. 

_Had_ known her. 

That thought alone brings Ethan to his knees and a cry escapes him after so long holding it in. 

For the past two weeks, he's held in all this agony, his grief, his overwhelming regret and guilt. 

He should have done better. He should have fought harder. He should have been with her, holding her hand, never letting it go. 

The running fear that shot through him during those harrowing few days of seeing her slowly deteriorate and become a shell of the once lively and bubbly determined Nicolette that Ethan always admired. 

Ethan runs his hands through his wet hair as his chest constricts against the memories of the last year and a half, the longing to be with her cuts through him again, the yearning to hear her voice, see her smile, drown in her scent, get lost in her body, every kiss a promise, every touch a treasure...every soft word a sonnet against her skin. 

The sun refuses to peek out of the clouds and he's glad. It’s fitting. It matches how he feels. Grey. Bleak. 

Ethan's blue eyes gaze on the spot in which he never thought he’d witness and another cry tears out of his throat. 

“ _Goddamnit!_ ”

Guilt thunders through him and it's laced through his next words as he speaks it out into the world. 

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Nicolette. Please, forgive me, I—” 

He can't finish his sentence as the tears overwhelm his ability to talk and he just sits there, in the muddy dirt, his pants soiled from the damp ground, his shoulders hunched over, shaking with sobs. 

He opens his tear-stained eyes, the vivid blue of them contrasted heavily against how bloodshot they were. Maybe it was the fact that he was slightly intoxicated, a bottle of scotch loosely held in the hand that wasn’t clutching the bouquet of roses in the other. 

He sips at the bottle and he sighs heavily, sniffles with the remnants of tears from his earlier breakdown. 

“I miss you,” Ethan starts, staring up into the grey clouds, his red-rimmed eyes willing for the sun to come out, wishing for some kind of silver lining in all this. “I miss you so much. I can’t believe I thought that it was a good idea to stay away from each other. I’m such a fool. Why did I deny it?” 

He drops the bottle of scotch and flowers, bringing both hands up to scratch at his scalp, threading his hair through his fingers and pulling, almost to the point of pain. 

“Why did I deny it? Why did I deny my feelings? The rules and expectations I tried so hard to build during my lifetime where important...?” He laughs bitterly, tears again strangling him. “...and they cost me you. My Nicolette. My Rookie. My...my…”

Silent tears treck down his cheeks as he finishes his sentence within his thoughts. 

_My love…_

The last week of his life has been more painful than most. Even more painful at the thought of Naveen dying and Delores leaving her infant son behind. This is sure to break him. 

The engraved words strike him again and the air is knocked out of him. 

> **NICOLETTE LIENA VALENTINE**
> 
> **04/04/92 - 06/09/20**
> 
> **LOVING DAUGHTER, CARING SISTER, LOYAL FRIEND AND A LIGHT TO ALL WHO KNEW HER.**
> 
> **REST WELL, ANGEL. FLY HIGH.**

Ethan’s tears continue as he lets the words sink in a third, forth, fifth time. He doesn’t know how many times he’s done this. Maybe he’s a glutton for punishment. All he can do is sit there and drown himself in memories, the ‘what ifs’ and the ‘could be’s’ and remember the bright light that was Nicolette Valentine. He can be happy about that. 

He was lucky that he could be witness to her star and that helps the painful days without her. Gratitude tears through the fog of despair in his mind and heart and a smile follows. The first one since Nicolette left this world. 

He’ll always be grateful that he could at least be part of her world in whatever capacity. He’ll always be grateful for her. 

He runs a gentle finger down the side of her engraved name and smiles again. 

_Thank you, Nicolette. Thank you for making me the man I am now. You changed me. You saved me._

“Thank you, my Rookie.” 

As Ethan presses a kiss to his fingers and places it against her picture, the sun decides to forgo hiding behind the clouds and a single beam of light shines down on him, warming him from the outside in and right in that moment, he knows. 

Nicolette is here...and she always will be. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!


End file.
